A Position Paper on Greenman v. Greenman

Write a paper defending your answer to the question whether Rosie Greenman is an adult at the age of twenty. The paper will require you not only to examine Rosie's character but also to give serious thought to what traits of character adults have and why they need to have them.  You may listen to the testimony by clicking on this link and then clicking on "Three Generations in a Court of Domestic Relations."  You can also listen there to some of the popular music of the time period of this case (1951).  A transcript of the testimony can be found here.  Uncle Max's letter can be read by clicking here.

Prewriting:

You could work on both parts of the project at once by taking one by one the facts you know about Rosie, asking what each fact shows about her character, and then determining whether this characteristic can be seen as an aspect of maturity or of immaturity. Ask why! If nothing comes to mind, hold the same fact up and look at it from some other angle. Gradually you should grow conscious of your own beliefs concerning adulthood, and you will know Rosie better.

Writing:

I recommend defining adulthood early in your paper, defending the definition, and then "measuring" Rosie by it.

You may be tempted to look for solutions to the problem, but that is not your job. Besides, no compromises will work. In particular, it is not feasible for Ed to move to Wyoming without Rosie to check out the job offer and so forth; he has not been invited to. Do not indulge in wishful thinking along these lines or any others. Say yes and very likely Rosie and Ed will marry as planned. Say no and the job offer will probably go to cousin Keith and his wife. Don't distract yourself with useless speculations. The question you are asked to decide is not what Rosie should do but rather whether at the age of 20 she can be considered an adult. If so, she is free to make all decisions adults may make, including whether to marry. You are not being asked to solve her problems or anyone else's. If she is not an adult, her mother decides the marriage issue. If she is an adult, Rosie herself decides it. You do not decide it.

Nor do you have to approve of it. This is a particularly difficult lesson to teach and to learn, so I must become a trifle philosophical. Adults do not (and need not) all have the same set of values, and therefore they may disagree widely on matters like how much risk is "safe" and on who is worthy of their love and sacrifice. What makes them adults is not what they decide but how they decide: what do they take into consideration and how carefully do they weigh their options? It is no easy task to distinguish between a reckless decision and a cautious one without being influenced by whether we approve of the decision itself, but if we respect the freedom of adults to disagree, that must be our task.

Once you have made up your mind, understand the communication situation. You are not addressing the world at large; you are addressing your fellow jurors. Since these people know the facts in the case already, you needn't summarize the testimony as a prelude to your discussion. Your readers heard the testimony. Tell them what you think it all amounts to: synthesize it, grouping what all the witnesses said about each significant issue, separating the issues and gathering together material from different sources. You will then be organizing around issues rather than around sources of information (the witnesses). This assignment hands you information packaged in one way and asks you to sort it all out and package it in a new way of your own.

The greatest danger arising from inattention to the communication situation is that you may waste valuable space and time arguing irrelevant issues. What determines relevance? It all depends on whom you are trying to persuade. You aren't engaged in a dispute with Anna, Sadie, Rosie, or the boyfriend. They are opposing each other, not you. They provided the evidence, but their interpretations of it are not the ones you need to change, so don't focus on what mistakes they have made. The mistakes that you need to correct are those made by the jurors who still disagree with you. Deal with what they think is important, and if you think something important that they don't, make them see its importance.

Most importantly, support every assertion you make. Some assertions will need factual support, and some will need explanations, some both ("Rosie has shown good/bad judgment"—When? What makes you call it "good"/"bad"?). Wherever a reader could ask, "How do you figure?" or "What do you mean by that?" or "What is maturity?" you have more to say.

Mechanics

1. A grandmother is not a "parent" to her grandchild.

2. When mother and grandmother are used alone, as proper names, they are capitalized, but when they are used as common nouns, modified as in "her mother" or "a grandmother," they are not capitalized:

I asked Mother to meet me at the station.

     BUT I asked my mother to meet me at the station.

3. Capitalize North, West, etc. when naming a part of the country but not when only indicating a direction:

I spent my vacation in the South.

I went south for my vacation.

The wind is coming from the south.

4. A woman engaged to be married is called a fiancée; a man engaged to be married is called a fiancé. The word means engaged in French, and the extra e is a feminine ending.

Facts

1. In the 1950s the country suffered the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment was sky-high, especially in New York City.

2. In the '50s, marriage was forever. Divorce was scandalous, all but unheard-of.

3. In the '50s a person was a minor and had to obey her legal guardian until the age of 21 unless a court declared her an adult before that time.

4. A minor cannot be legally required to support a parent.

5. No one can be legally required to support a grandparent.

6. If a minor chooses to work, her guardian can claim her wages.